(WPRI) — Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said he will talk with Governor Gina Raimondo about connecting Providence and Boston with high-speed rail service.
On Wednesday’s taping of Boston Public Radio, a program on WGBH radio in Boston, Gov. Raimondo said she thinks there should be faster train service between the two cities.
“Imagine if we had an affordable 30-35 minute train between Providence and Boston?” she asked hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan.
“I’m going to try to pitch Governor Baker on this,” she continued. “We should get together and do this because it’s good for Boston, the traffic is uncontrollable, and it will allow us to recruit more companies to the region.”
On Thursday, Baker appeared on the same program, and responded to Raimondo’s idea.
“Anything we would do here, we would have to do around whatever the Amtrak schedule looks like,” he said.
Baker said, as he understands it, the track that connects the two cities is owned by Amtrak and rented by the MBTA.
Currently, Amtrak offers Acela service between Providence and Boston that takes less than an hour, but tickets are much more expensive than those for the commuter rail.
When asked by Braude whether he would at least discuss the idea with Raimondo, Baker agreed, saying, “Oh yeah.”
